


Cancer

by Nova_Raven



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cancer, F/M, Melanoma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nova_Raven/pseuds/Nova_Raven
Summary: “Yo, how’d it…”“It’s back.”
Relationships: Colby Brock & Sam Golbach, Sam Golbach/Katrina Stuart
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Cancer

“Yo, how’d it…”

“It’s back.”

Colby looked up from his phone, a cold feeling sinking into his chest. Sam was standing in front of him, a glassy look in his eyes, and it had nothing to do with one of his eyes actually being glass.

Colby set his phone down, already getting flashbacks from eight years ago. Because he’d been driving Sam to his eye appointments for years because Sam hated driving with his eyes dilated but it had never gone like this. Not since… “How bad is it?” He asked quietly.

Sam shrugged, his voice empty. “They took a biopsy today. Said they’ll get it back in like three weeks. Then uh… then they go from there.”

Colby nodded, swallowing hard. There was already panic welling up in his throat, as remembered images of hospitals and doctors and fear and _helplessness_ flashed back through his mind. “Okay,” Colby said, “We uh… we’ll figure it out, okay?”

Sam nodded, and his hands were clenched tightly into fists. “I gotta… I gotta tell Kat, I gotta tell my parents, I gotta… fuck…”

“Sam.” Colby stood up, gripping Sam’s shoulder’s tightly. Sam’s eyes were tearing up, and he sought Colby’s eyes desperately. “Hey, hey, we don’t even know if it’s a bad one yet, the biopsy might be fine.”

Sam shook his head, and he was already shaking. “I know, I know, I just… I don’t…” He closed his eyes and looked away, “I don’t wanna go blind, Colby…”

And Colby felt more emotion choke up in his throat, but he fought it down, because it was Sam, and Sam didn’t need Colby losing his shit.

Sam was the one facing fucking cancer.

“We’re gonna figure it out, dude,” He promised, pulling Sam against his chest, feeling the first sob break free from Sam’s lungs. “It’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna figure it out.”

_“It’s called Intraoccular melanoma, I think,” Colby remembered fifteen year old Sam explaining to him, “They’re just going to go in, get it out, and then that’ll be it.”_

_And Colby was still fourteen at the time, and he didn’t really understand what Sam was talking about. He just knew that Sam had been sent to an eye doctor after he discovered that he would need correction in one of his eyes to get his driver's permit. The eye doctor had taken a look at his eyes, and according to Sam, they’d found something weird._

_They didn’t know how bad it was at that point. They thought it would just be a simple in and out. However, further testing showed that the cancer had almost eaten the whole back section of his eye. They were lucky they caught it when they did, because the doctors theorized that if they had left it much longer it might have spread to other parts of his body._

_And Colby knew even then that there would not have been a good way to treat him._

_Colby remembered his parents trying to explain to him what was going on, when Sam had to go to the hospital for treatment (for radiation) and Colby hated that the thing that was supposed to be helping Sam was making his friend so sore and giving him migraines, making him miss school and band and all of the fun things that they were supposed to be doing together-_

_If there wasn’t some fucking cancer trying to kill his friend-_

_But after about six months it became clear that the non-surgical option was not going to work long term._

_And so they took the whole eye out._

_Sam tried to be optimistic about the whole thing, and they were already doing social media at this point so Sam took their small following through the whole process of the surgery and getting fitted for a prosthetic, but of course, it wasn’t that emotionally easy._

_Because losing one eye sucked, and watching Sam adjust to his new depth perception was mostly a lot less fun than they made it out to be on social media, but the worst part was the knowledge that came afterwards._

_That there was always a chance that it would come back, that he could develop melanoma in his other eye._

_And removing Sam’s remaining eye would leave him blind._

“So it’s a bad one?” Colby asked, watching the heaviness on Sam’s face as he put his phone down. The three week wait for the biopsy results had been nerve-wracking. Sam had tried to make out like he wasn’t as worried as he was, but Colby knew his friend too well.

Sam was terrified. And with good reason.

Colby didn’t want to watch his friend go through Chemo or radiation.

Colby didn’t want his friend to go blind.

Sam sighed, pressing his hands into his face. “It’s a melanoma…” He said quietly, “They’re not sure like, how invasive it is yet so uh… they don’t know how they’re gonna treat it.”

“Do they think they’re gonna have to…” Colby didn’t want to say it, his eyes on Sam.

Sam shrugged, “I wish I knew…” And his voice was thick, and he picked his phone up again. “I’m gonna call Kat,” He said, and Colby nodded.

“Call me if you need me,” Colby murmured, meeting Sam’s eyes evenly, trying to convey as much comfort as he could.

Sam nodded jerkily, walking away and already dialing Kat’s number.

_“So, they’re gonna make you like a fake eye?” Colby asks, and they’re fifteen and sitting on a swing set at the local park._

_Sam looks frail, his body still not having recovered from the beating eye surgery had given it. He still looks paler than normal, thinner than normal, and there’s a placeholder orb in place of his cancerous eye._

_The bruising from the surgery is finally starting to fade._

_“Yeah,” Sam nods, kicking his feet in the mulch._

_“Is it gonna be like… a normal eye? Do you get to pick out like… a cool demon eye or something?”_

_The comment surprises a laugh out of Sam, “It’ll look like my real eye,” Sam points at his remaining eye. “You won’t be able to tell the difference.”_

_Colby laughs back, even as he thinks internally to himself that he could never forget the way Sam’s eye socket looked post surgery, could never forget that Sam literally had to have a cancer removed from his head. “Can you like, switch them out though? That would be great for Halloween.”_

_Sam laughs too, and they both ignore the earlier part of the conversation, where Sam had told him that they would spend the rest of his life making sure that nothing came back in his remaining eye._

_That it would be recommended that he get his eyes checked at least every 3-6 months._

_Colby just hoped nothing would come back._

But of course, this day came.

Sam was in the room with the doctor, while Colby and Kat sat in the waiting room. Colby’s absentmindedly flipping through his phone, but he’s not really seeing anything he’s looking at.

He was pretty sure Kat was doing the same thing. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet, not that Colby could really blame her. They were talking through Sam’s treatment options. The bloodwork and the imaging was back, and this was the day they found out how bad it was going to be.

Sam had almost retreated into himself, blank, empty answers all Colby and Kat were able to pull from him on the drive to the ophthalmologist’s. And now, sitting and waiting in the waiting room, there’s nothing for Colby’s brain to do but worry.

“How did you do this last time?” Kat asked quietly, “This is… this is awful.”

She looked lost and terrified. Colby had been amazed at how together she was staying around Sam, but now that Sam wasn’t in the room, she was letting her real feelings show.

Colby sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Last time it wasn’t a question of him going blind,” He said simply. “I mean, him losing an eye sucked, but we were always so glad that…”

_“At least I still have one eye that hasn’t fucked up,” Sam shrugs, and he’s finally back to pre-cancer levels of strength, “And look, you can’t even tell the difference.” He points at the fake eye and Colby nods, mostly to humor Sam._

_He can still tell the difference. The fake one doesn’t sparkle with the same life that fills Sam’s flesh and blood eye._

_“And you can still see,” Colby pointed out, “Woulda sucked if you never got to see a pair of tits in real life.”_

_“Shut the fuck up, Colby…”_

“Colby?” It was Kat’s voice, small and vulnerable. Colby turned to look at her, and he knew the fear he was feeling showed on his face by the way her face twisted with pain.

Colby shook his head, pressing hands into his eyes and scrubbing at them, watching the fireworks behind his eyelids burst, willing away the tears. “Sorry, I just…”

And then Kat wrapped arms around him, and Colby laughed brokenly. “Fuck, I’m sorry. This just sucks…”

He felt Kat nod against his shoulder. “It really does,” She agreed, and he wrapped an arm around her back to hold her closer.

“They caught it early, and it should be easy to treat,” Colby murmured, more for himself than for her, but if she got any benefit out of it then that was cool too.

“They caught it early, and it should be easy to treat…”

_“What do you think it would be like... you know, to be blind?” Sam asks him, and they’re laying out on chairs by the pool. They’re seventeen now, and Sam’s surgery is a good year in the past._

_Not that they’re really fully over it._

_Colby shrugs, turning to look at his friend. Sam’s got his arm thrown over his face, but he seems to sense Colby’s gaze, turning to squint at him. “Everything would be dark, I guess?” Colby offers, not sure what Sam wants from him. “Why?”_

_He doesn’t want to think about Sam being blind. Even if it had been made clear to them both that it was a potential threat if Sam didn’t keep having his eyes checked._

_Sam shrugs back. “I dunno, just, like… a thought…” He’s worked a finger into the pocket of his swim trunks, and he’s playing with the fabric. “Because, like… what if it comes back?”_

_Colby let his head rest back. “Then this time, they catch it early,” He said, “And they can treat it before it like, gets that big.” That’s what he had to keep telling himself, anyway._

_There had been warning signs, in retrospect, that there was something wrong with Sam’s eye. Vision changes and what not, but it had been so slow growing that Sam’s other eye had accommodated for it._

_That wouldn’t be an option if there was a next time._

_“But like… what if they don’t?” Sam asks, and now there’s fear in his voice. “What if they don’t catch it, and they have to take my other eye, and then I’m blind and I can’t see and I can’t do all the shit that we want to do, and what if-”_

_“Sam,” Colby cuts off the panicked rant as Sam’s voice starts to crack in a way that has nothing to do with hormones. Sam catches his breath, his gaze catching Colby’s desperately, “They’ll catch it early, and you won’t have to get to that point, okay?” He makes sure that he’s staring into Sam’s remaining eye as he speaks. “It’s gonna be okay, you’re not going to go blind.”_

_“But what if I do?” Sam asks, and the conversation blends then in Colby’s mind, into a conversation he had with Sam when they were sixteen, and again at twenty-three._

Last night...

_“What if I lose both my eyes?”_

And the promise is the same, both times.

_“Then we’ll make it work, Brother,” Colby promises. “Then we’ll make it work together. Because it’s not “Sam and”, or “and Colby.” It’s Sam and Colby. And we’re gonna make this okay.”_

Both Colby and Kat’s eyes flew to the door to the patient rooms when they heard it open. Sam stepped out and he looked shaky, body language that immediately alarmed Colby.

Colby wasn't even aware of moving until he was standing in front of Sam, searching his friend’s eyes for any sort of sign of what the doctors had said. “Sam…”

“They’re going to be able to get it out,” Sam said, and his voice was low and shaky but so, so, so relieved when he spoke. “They’re gonna be able to treat it, and my eye might be sore for a few days, but they can save it.” He shook his head, disbelief in his voice, “I’m not going to lose my eye, Colby…”

And Colby had arms wrapped around Sam before he even fully realized he was moving, and Kat was there too, and both of them just hugged Sam so tightly.

“Told you,” Colby mumbled, the only volume he could get his voice out past the roaring, rushing relief in his chest. “Told you you’d be okay.”

Sam just shook his head into Colby’s shoulder. “I’m so fucking glad you were right…”

He heard Kat’s wet laugh, crying now with relief. “God…”

They’d dodged the bullet this time. Sam wouldn’t lose his remaining eye. Colby finally let the tension that had been sitting in his chest relax.

Sam was going to be okay.

"Told you so..."

**Author's Note:**

> So... I'm alive!
> 
> I haven't been writing as much, because COVID, I guess, or because for the first time in a long time I'm not processing something? I dunno. Either way, this is the first thing that's made it past about 1000 words of draft I can't finish.
> 
> This thing... I have no idea where it came from. Combination of pandemic angst and a Good Doctor episode I watched snippets of. This almost had a bad ending but then the science prevailed and saved Sam.
> 
> And I think we could all use a happy ending right now.
> 
> Stay safe, and as always, I'll see you guys in the next one!


End file.
